


tearing up everything

by imprintofadream (imprint_of_a_doe)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprint_of_a_doe/pseuds/imprintofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Even so, you’re the leader of this pack if not the alpha, and without you... there isn’t much of a pack, is there? I’m sure Derek will understand. He let you out to get into this situation, didn’t he? Didn’t bother protecting you?” </i>
</p><p>But Stiles doesn't<i> need</i> protecting; he's plenty capable of protecting himself, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tearing up everything

**Author's Note:**

> author's note: written for the for [prompt 1042](http://xandrium.livejournal.com/) by [xandrium](xandrium.livejournal.com/). I was very lucky to get this piece and this artist, because it’s _beautiful_ and inspiring and awesome!! Be sure to drop by her lj and tell her so! 
> 
> disclaimer: characters are property of jeff davis and mtv. lyrics at beginning belong to mikky ekko from the song 'we must be killers.'

\--

_set my body free_

_the silver ~~tigers~~ wolves in the moonlight running_

_and the wind in the trees_

_singing do you believe?_

\--

**tearing up everything**  


\--

The sun rises over the edge of the mountains, pink and orange and grey under the clouds, and the shadows of the trees stretch through the forest around him, chilly and dark. Stiles shivers against the trunk where he leans, knees drawn up against his chest.

His eyelashes are crusted with frost, nose running and bright red as he swipes his damp sleeve across his face. “Fuck,” he croaks, stiff fingers fumbling with his dead phone before slipping it back into the top of his jacket. “Fuck.”

When he looks up at the sky, the clouds above still drop snow, light and just barely visible. He’s fucking tired--and _freezing,_ holy _god._

“Of all the shit to happen,” he says, jacket pulled up around his nose. It’s at least warm in here, even if his eyes are still watering a bit. It’s been eleven hours.

A wolf howls off to his left, and Stiles stills in response, listening intently. When another joins in, he shakes himself out, uses the tree to push himself to his feet; he gasps at the pain and stiffness, stumbling back against the trunk for a moment before he gets a handle on it. His head pounds.

Whether or not it’s his pack out there, Stiles refuses to sit around waiting any longer. He’s too cold, lost, alone, and he’s fairly sure he has a concussion, but it doesn’t stop him from cupping his palm in front of his face, concentrating on the warmth under this skin, always waiting just under the surface. The small flame flickers into existence, warming his hand, turning blue-gold and spreading out until wisps of it stretch out around him, sheltering him from the snow even as he stamps his feet to get feeling back into his toes.

“Take me home,” he whispers, breath barely visible in front of his face, and the flame swirls down next to him, takes form at his side, winging to his left, toward the howling.

He closes his eyes for a moment, breathes in and out again, clenches his fingers together, and finally walks forward.

\--

Scott’s the one who insisted on naming the manifestations of Stiles’ magic. The one next to him now is Fawkes, which Stiles has no objections to--largely because it _is_ a firebird, flashing in the shadows ahead of him. His fingers tremble with each inaudible cry it lets out, guiding him and protecting him at once.

When Fawkes goes out in a shrinking swirl of flame, snuffed like a gust of wind against a candle, Stiles freezes in his tracks, pulls back against the magic until it warps itself around the skin of his arms. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

The crocotta freezes in a small clearing, and Stiles holds his breath as he watches the sunlight gleam against the dappled fur, remembering how it felt to be slammed into a tree by that body.

“Stiiiiiles.”

“Fuck off,” he growls.

“Stiles, honey.”

He grits his teeth against the ache in his chest at his mother’s voice, hands trembling in front of him. “Fuck. Off. My pack will be after you by now.”

“Stiles.”

It turns toward him, head cocked with interest, and the wind picks up the snowflakes in its mane as one hoof steps forward. The threat about his pack was empty, _had_ to be empty because it _would_ be the one fucking creature in the bestiary to stun dogs and men alike.

His magic hums against his skin, though, and Stiles knows better than to fall forward, to approach. He’s already made that mistake once, underestimating its speed and strength, and he certainly won’t be doing that again anytime soon. Lydia mentioned the crocotta could be a weak telepath--which, yes, confirmed, because it _stole his mother’s voice-_ -but at any rate it should be aware he doesn’t make easy prey, not anymore.

“Stiles.”

“Stop _saying my name!”_ His magic jumps from his skin like a wild creature, flitting around him in a flurry of colorless energy until the crocotta stops in its tracks, head turning to the east.

And then it’s gone.

\--

“Dude, I don’t know.” Stiles dumps his soaked jacket on Derek’s front porch, reaches for his sweat-stained long-sleeve next, and he’s shivering against the cold in his t-shirt and thermal bottoms when Derek finally shoves him inside, frowning over him. “I just fucking want a warm shower and maybe tea and a grilled cheese, and a fucking _nap,_ please, god, and then we can talk. I’m too tired.”

“If you hadn’t--”

“No Blame-Game until after that list is complete!” he interrupts, turning beseeching eyes on the rest of the pack where they’re gathered just inside the kitchen. “Please?”

Scott nudges Allison and Boyd out of his way to help Stiles up the stairs, goes to get him dry clothes from someone’s room while Stiles starts the water in the bathroom. “Thanks, dude.” Stiles grins at him, taking the towel and clothes gratefully. “Can you get someone to get me some food?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Scott hovers for a minute before clapping him on the shoulder, eyes flicking over him for good measure before he lets Stiles close the door.

By the time he gets downstairs, towel pressed against the sluggishly bleeding cut across his temple that he reopened washing his face, Allison is waiting for him in the kitchen, a bowl of soup and a sandwich in front of the empty stool at the counter. He smiles at her gratefully, pulls the towel away to check the blood clotting, and sighs as he presses it back. “Sorry about the towel,” he says, “but you all should be used to washing blood out of shit by now, so. Doesn’t really matter, right?”

Boyd snorts from his spot leaning against the counter by the fridge, shrugging his crossed arms. “It’s Derek’s towel, and those are Derek’s clothes, so it doesn’t matter to me.”

Stiles glances at Scott as he takes a sip of the tea in front of him. “Dude, you couldn’t have grabbed me something of Isaac’s? I’m drowning in these.”

“Shut up and eat, Stiles, because if you really want to talk, we have plenty of fodder for discussion,” Derek says from behind him.

He rolls his eyes but settles down quietly to listen to the pack talking around him. Erica is the one to catch him nodding off into his food, but Scott and Isaac escort him upstairs to the bedroom at the end of the hall, and he falls onto Derek’s bed without complaint. Magic crackles over him for just a moment, evaluating, bursts out to update the wards around the house, and then he’s falling asleep.

\--

Stiles wakes up to Derek on the other side of the mattress, one arm shoved under the pillow and the other flat down his side. He swallows, stares for a minute before rolling over to see that someone plugged his phone in.

He gets his dad’s voicemail, since it’s six in the evening and he’s on swing shift. He’s probably busy with a call. “Dad, hi, it’s me. I’m just calling to tell you I’m okay, made it back safely this morning but I didn’t really complete my goal. Probably gonna head out again tomorrow. I’ll stop by home before I go.”

Derek shifts in his sleep, hiking one leg up, and Stiles twists to avoid getting kneed in the spine.

“Bed hog.”

Erica and Isaac look at him over the top of the couch when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, wordlessly making room between them.

“So, what happened?” Erica finally asks after he’s eaten four of the Hershey’s kisses on the coffee table. He wads the foil up into a ball and flicks it at her, isn’t surprised when she bats it out of the air without blinking.

“I found it,” Stiles says as he stretches his spine over the back of the couch, arms over his head. “Obviously.”

Isaac leans over him, turns his face before retreating again. “Hit your head. Obviously.”

“Shut up, you’re not allowed to be snide.”

“I live with Derek and Peter--sometimes even you. How can I _not_ be snide?”

Stiles has to give him that. “I got a little too close,” he admits. “It managed to throw me into a tree trunk, and then Aslan manifested and the crocotta took off. I slept against the tree, I think, I don’t know, and when I woke up in the morning it was still around.” He pauses. “It... spoke to me in my mom’s voice.”

Erica frowns, digs her feet under his thigh. “How did it--?”

“So Lydia was right? It’s telepathic?” Isaac looks disturbed, and Stiles reaches out to squeeze his bicep.

“Yeah. I think it’s only to a limited degree, though. It knows just enough to fuck with you, to make you let your guard down. I don’t like that it can imitate human voices this well. It could technically fool any of us into stepping out of a protected area and into a trap, especially if it decided to sound like it was one of us in danger.”

“Simple, then. Nobody leaves the house until it’s done passing through the area.”

Stiles looks back over the couch to see Derek rubbing the heel of his hand against his eye, sweats hanging low on his hips. He purses his lips, tries not to let his eyebrows creep up as he turns to face the TV again. “Dumb idea, Derek.”

“I know. I was just waiting to hear you say it.” Derek’s yawning as he rounds the end table to fall into his favorite armchair. “Are you watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”

“Yeah,” Erica says, shrugging; her toes wiggle under Stiles’ leg and he pokes her waist in retaliation. “Isaac says he wants to be Mikey. You’re Raphael, and Stiles is a mix of Leo and Donatello.”

Derek looks up at the ceiling like he’s praying and Stiles grins. “Awesome. I’m the planner and the leader and the techie--wait, is the April thing a comment on my love life?” Erica only preens, and he shoves her into the arm of the couch lightly. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”

“Alright, then, Leotello, do you have a _real_ plan for dealing with this thing?”

“Where’s the rest of the pack?” Stiles asks, yawning into his shoulder now. He blames Derek.

“We sent Scott and Allison to get pizza, and Jackson and Lydia are grocery shopping with Boyd,” Isaac offers, reaching for the remote to turn down the commercials. “We should have a Round Table meeting when everyone gets back. Like, literally. I think that’s where they went for the pizza.”

Stiles talks while they all eat, telling them what he observed about the crocotta’s movements.

“I still don’t know why it’s here, in California. The legends originated in Ethiopia and India,” Lydia muses. “It’s true that it can survive pretty much anywhere there’s enough prey--and there are definitely enough deer here--but it still strikes me as odd.”

“Is there any way to control them?” Allison asks. She’s pointedly not watching Scott eat, probably because she’d fall out of love with him, and Stiles hides his smirk behind a napkin.

Lydia shrugs and looks over at Jackson for just a moment. “I have no idea. We’ll have to do more research. What made it back off, Stiles?”

“Aslan,” he says, reaching across Boyd for the ranch dressing. “It didn’t think I was a threat at first, but when Aslan manifested in front of me, it took off. Not too far, I don’t think. It might have spent the night observing me, because it was close in the morning. Fawkes warned me.”

“So was it the magic, you think, or the form it took?”

He purses his lips, sets the slice of pizza in his hand back on his plate. “You think it might have been the lion more than the magic itself?”

She leans forward, careful to keep her hair out of the food, and he remembers when he would have happily leaned forward across the table to kiss her if she ever showed any interest. Now he just marvels at her avoidance of all the mess. “Your magic is part of you. It’s perpetually under your skin, over your skin, around you--the crocotta should have been able to sense it the whole time, but it was only after it manifested in a physical shape that it backed off.”

“It stayed away in the morning,” he points out, “kind of.” Someone kicks him under the table, and Stiles eyes the opposite side warily before letting a tendril of his magic unravel from around his ankle. Derek bolts upright in his chair and Stiles grins. “Nice try, Hale.”

“Serious meeting here!” Lydia’s glaring at them when Stiles looks back at her. He shrugs and focuses on the tentative bond connecting him to Derek, feeling his pulse merge with that of the magic. Derek slides back down in his chair, lets his ankle press against Stiles’ under the table, and he fights back a smile.

“We’re good, go on.”

“Allison’s right. What if something is controlling it? What if it was lured here? Have you heard anything from any of the other hunter families?” Scott looks up at Allison, confusion warring with the usual head-over-heels expression that Stiles privately finds fucking _amusing_ even if he’ll swear on pain of death that there’s nothing wrong with Scott. They _are_ good questions, though, and he’s almost offended he didn’t think of them himself.

Allison stands up and starts collecting the empty paper plates, kissing Scott’s temple as she passes him. “No, nothing that I’ve heard. I’ll ask my dad, but it might be a few days before he gets back to me. His meeting in New York is supposed to go until Tuesday. Boyd, can you help me get dessert out of the freezer?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Peter?” Stiles asks, observing the way his own heartbeat has slowed to match Derek’s. It’s far more even than usual, almost scarily so, but that tendril of magic between them is solid and steady in just the same way.

“In Sausalito. He wanted to talk with the pack in Marin County, see if they’ve ever encountered one of these things before. What happened with Scott made him suspicious,” Derek answers. “I don’t think he liked the way Scott froze up in the thing’s shadow.”

“Stop calling it a thing.” Lydia rolls her eyes. Stiles is never sure which of them have the most dramatic eye roll, but it’s a fairly close call.

“We didn’t realize what it was at first. Letting Scott go in alone was a bad idea, but we learned from it and it helped us to identify the crocotta so we could do more research. In the end, it all worked out, so everyone needs to calm down and let me deal with this.”

Derek growls, and Stiles levels him with an unimpressed look. “I don’t like that you’re the only one who can do this. I don’t like that we can’t help you if you get into trouble, or get thrown into a tree again,” he says pointedly, reaching across the table to press his fingers lightly along the side of Stiles’ face. “We heal, you don’t. If it comes down to that, let one of us take over.”

Stiles reaches up to pull Derek’s hand down, feels a jolt run through his magic when Derek pulls his hand back; another tendril has wrapped around his wrist, and Derek looks at it with something like annoyed fondness. “Look, I’ll be fine. I’ll be careful. I know more about it now.”

“Stop letting your magic move like that,” Erica says over the last slice of pizza straight from the box. Boyd and Allison are carrying pies into the dining room, both of them concentrating on not falling over, and Scott bounds up to help while Jackson leans back further in his seat. “It’s making us all uncomfortable, like a boner at the dinner table.”

Stiles feels his face flush. “It’s not--I’m not doing it on purpose!”

“Boners aren’t on purpose either, Stilinski. Who let you name the stuff anyway?”

Scott glares at Jackson. “Aslan is a perfectly acceptable name for a lion! Calling it magic all the time gets boring.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “Boring. Magic is boring.”

Derek shakes his head, rolls his eyes heavenward again as the tendrils of magic start to slip away from his skin, and Stiles has to start serving pie up to stop himself from smiling.

\--

“Okay, Stiles, this is gonna be as quick as you can make it. Remember, this creature is faster and stronger than you. Do _not_ let it get its mouth anywhere near you, obviously. If it bites you, it won’t let go until you’re dead, at which point... well, you know the legends. Just... make sure you have your magic on hand, and keep the comm unit active.”

“Sure thing, Archer.”

“Stop calling me that.” Allison laughs anyway. “Keep us updated, we’re ready to send Derek and Boyd out if you need them.”

“I won’t,” Stiles argues, climbing over a fallen tree. “That’d be all bad. If anything, I’m calling you. At least you can do damage from far enough away that I could protect you.”

“Yeah, well, I got overruled when I suggested that.”

“They just want you to be safe.” Stiles sighs, pauses to look up at the greying sky overhead. “I know it sucks, I know you hate being perceived as weak, and I agree that having the two of us go out in a team is probably safer, but if we got separated... Look, you’re good at leading us, through comm or in person. I’m relying on you to get me through this, because you and Lydia are the only ones with any planning sense.”

“How’s it look?” Derek’s voice comes over the comm and Stiles has to grin even as his magic lifts off of his skin, shaping itself into a falcon before settling on his shoulder to wait for his command; he can see the red-gold shimmering in the corner of his eye as Horus shuffles its feathers.

“So far, no sign of him. I’m sending Horus up in a minute to get a good view, see if it can spot the crocotta. Once I get an idea, I’m going to set off, wait for it to get the scent of the meat. I’ll check in, stop worrying.”

“I never stop worrying. I have a pack full of idiots,” Derek says.

Stiles laughs. “Bad decision making from the start then, wasn’t it?”

“Shut up and keep your eyes open.”

\--

Horus catches the crocotta near the edge of the river three miles north, and Stiles calls his magic back to him, lets it prowl along at his side as the moon rises above them; the blade strapped to his forearm chafes against his skin.

After two hours have passed with no trace of the crocotta, Stiles sends Horus up again, sees the creature has turned back toward town, that’s it’s prowling around near the outskirts in the industrial sector, and he curses. “Hey, Stiles here. The crocotta is nearing town, down by the warehouses. I think it followed the river in.”

“What should we do?”

“Allison, you need to go into town. The wolves can’t help--they’ll just get stuck if they try to track it. I’ll keep Horus in the sky while I make my way back in. Can you pick me up along the northeast road, by the river in half an hour?”

“Yeah, no problem. And, hey, I know the pack can’t track the _crocotta,_ but they can still track us, right? _We_ can still lead it in, have them there for backup?”

“Yeah, technically, but their goal can’t be to attack it. Why?”

She pauses and the comm crackles in his ear a little as his shifts his backpack higher, tightens the straps and begins to jog south. “I talked to my dad. He says one of the hunter clans didn’t show up--apparently they have a project and nobody knows any details. Last anyone heard of them, they were up in Oregon hunting down wolf packs. Lydia’s still looking up ways to trap a crocotta into doing your bidding, but what if the hunters lured it down here, the same way you’re trying to lure it in? What if they’ve been guiding it to packs, taking advantage of its powers?”

“Fuck. Fuck, this is bad. How big is the clan?” He pauses to check in with Horus, tracks the crocotta’s slow movement along one of the fences enclosing the industrial district.

“Three sisters in the family, and however many goons they’ve picked up. That’s why I want the wolves along. I’m going to have them track us to the warehouse. I feel like the crocotta might be trying to lead _us.”_

“What if it’s leading the wolves?”

“Well, that’s what you and I are there to prevent, yeah?”

Stiles starts to smile, feels Horus drop down out of the air to spiral excitedly. “Yeah. See you in ten.”

\--

Allison climbs up a ladder on the side of a warehouse, holding herself in place with her legs and belt as she leans away from the building, bow trained on the open quad where Stiles plans to lead the crocotta. He lets his magic disintegrate as he nears the complex, because even if he needs it for protection, he needs to not alert the crocotta more.

He kind of regrets that when something darts out of the shadows and crushes him against a wall, and when he comes to bound to a chair inside, he _definitely_ regrets it.

“Stiles, isn’t it?”

The woman talking has a low voice, hair bright red and glinting in the low lighting overhead as she steps forward. She smiles at him.

“Apparently,” he says, letting his head loll back against the top of the chair.

“Ah, good. Did the cut across your nose come from running through the forest?”

“Probably. Did you have to take my jacket away? It’s fucking cold in here.”

She laughs, and that more than anything else unsettles him. His heart races in his chest, his wrists, and he thinks about Derek’s pulse, steady through the tendrils of magic that had bound them together through dinner earlier. “You’re not going to need your jacket, wolf mage.”

He snorts. “Please, like you even know what mages actually exist. I’m not exactly Krasus, though I gotta admit being dragonkin would be fucking awesome.”

She nods to someone behind him and spots bloom across his vision as something hard connects with his cheekbone, bright with pain; it’s like he can see his magic against the inside of his eyelids, but that would be wishful thinking at this point. “Gonna cooperate?”

“Probably not?” he says, licking his lip and trying to see around him. “You should have known that already though.”

“Cissa likes to dream,” says a new voice, and Stiles groans, rolls his head around to see another woman with darker hair step into his circle of vision. She smiles at him, too. “I’m a little more realistic. And, by realistic, I mean inclined to violence when answers are elusive. That or a little psychological torment. Was hearing your mother’s voice comforting at all?”

Stiles surveys her, tests the bonds around his wrists and ankles, and shrugs despite the pull in his shoulders. “I have a high pain threshold. Also, if I were you, I’d be more worried about saving your beastie from death than torturing some Sheriff’s son.”

The red-head--Cissa?--frowns, taps an electric baton against her leg. “What can your little wolf pack do against the crocotta? Haven’t you done your research?”

“Why do you think you caught me and not one of them? Were you surprised when you realized you had an innocent human in your clutches, or does that not matter to you?”

“Innocent?” The other sister laughs, head thrown back, and Stiles thinks about Derek tearing her throat out-- _with his teeth_ , he thinks, and _inappropriate, bad timing, oh my god._ “You run with wolves. You’re not innocent. You’re _dangerous.”_

“I’m human!”

“You’re still leading this pack. Without you, the Beacon Hills pack has no idea what it’s doing. You’re the one who drove out the Alpha Pack, aren’t you?” She steps closer to him, crouches down in front of him, and her eyes remind him of Allison as she was after her mom died. He thinks sometimes his eyes look like that too. When she reaches out to drag his collar down, revealing the four scars just under his collarbone, he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t breathe any differently. “Not without cost, of course, but those healed nicely.”

Stiles leans back in the chair, pushes up with his toes, and she pulls her hand back, still smiling. “If you’re going to kill me, just fucking get it over with, holy god. All of you villains just give me the same damn speech. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard this shit?”

Cissa steps forward to join her sister, rests a hand on her shoulder. “He’s right. The faster we get this done, the faster we can get out of town and watch the Hale pack implode on itself.”

The other woman nods, rises from her crouch to lean over Stiles’ chair, gripping the back of it as she presses her face in close to his. “Guess so. Such a waste of talent.”

Even though he expects it, Stiles still chokes on a scream when Cissa presses her baton to his neck, convulsing against his bonds as the electricity flows through him, detouring through his nerves, down his spine, clenching in his muscles until he’s arched away from the chair, struggling to breathe until she moves away. The blue sparks across his skin mirror the electricity of the wand even after it turns off, but Cissa jolts back in surprise. “Mel--his skin. What the fuck is that?”

Her sister frowns, lips pursed even as she steps away. “It could be some kind of bond to the pack,” she says slowly. “Tell the guards to be on the lookout for the wolves, and make sure Emily keeps the crocotta around.”

Stiles pants, sagging back in the chair, but he’s grinning, watching his magic flex itself from his skin in searching tendrils, whipping across his body rapidly like cilia. “Not a bond. Not the pack. Just me. Well fucking done.”

“Ah, this’ll be why you’re in control of the pack, then.” Mel pulls a knife off the table behind her--he’s annoyed to see it’s the one he had strapped against his forearm earlier, knows exactly what it’s been cured in and what it can do.

“No, actually, I’m the alpha? Surprise!”

“Bullshit,” she says, approaching him slowly. Her eyes track the movement of the magic over his skin, and he just wants her to try. “Derek Hale is the alpha of this pack.”

“Derek happens to be my mate, boyfriend, whatever you wanna call it, _Mel,_ so maybe you should rethink this shit.”

She pauses again, drawing the knife back and forth across her pants until she shakes her head, crouches down again to press the knife against his jeans. He grits his teeth, watches the magic flicker over his exposed skin before it sinks back into him. “Even so, you’re the leader of this pack if not the alpha, and without you... there isn’t much of a pack, is there? I’m sure your alpha will understand. He let you out to get into this situation, didn’t he? Didn’t bother protecting you?”

He breathes in sharply when she presses the blade down, slow and steady, knuckles white around the steel even as his blood starts to stain his jeans, and he’s still waiting for something to happen, still waiting for her to be flung backwards or fried or--

“Stiles tends to do whatever he wants. Never does much good even when I try to intervene.”

Derek’s voice is low, consonants clipped in the familiar fanged way, and Stiles relaxes despite the knife protruding from his thigh muscle. “Fucking _finally.”_

Mel doesn’t move, doesn’t take her hand off of the knife. “Ah, Mr. Hale. Would you mind stepping forward so we can shoot you as well?”

“As well implies you’ve already shot someone,” Stiles points out. “And, so far as I know, all you’ve done is prod me with a knife.”

She glares up at him, presses the knife in deeper as he gasps; his leg tries to kick out involuntarily, stumped by the bonds, and he can hear Derek growling behind him, the feral deep sound that says more of his form than anything else could. “For all you know, wolf mage, maybe we have.”

“Or maybe my pack already killed your sister and most of your brigade, so fuck off,” he says, reflexive, and by the time he’s lying sideways on the floor, knuckles stinging from where they collided with her face, elbow pulsing with pain, she’s lying halfway between her sister and Derek, hair half-fallen from her ponytail, lip bright with blood. Allison bleeds out of the shadows to help him up, and he shakes her off to step up next to Derek, feels a clawed hand settle around the side of his neck where the electric baton fried him earlier. He tries not to wince, doesn’t have to force his smile when he sees Cissa stumble to her knees next to her sister.

“Anything you have to say to us? Apologies, maybe? Acknowledgements of our pure _awesomeness?”_ Stiles grins, crosses his arms over his chest even as he shifts his weight to his uninjured leg.

“You’re all going to die someday,” Mel spits. “If it’s not us, it’ll be someone else, or something. Your magic isn’t going to save you, and it sure as hell won’t save them.” She jerks her head toward the rest of the pack, and Stiles meets Isaac’s eyes, takes in the blood dripping down Erica’s left hand, the shredded skin melding itself back together over Boyd’s knuckles.

“I might not be able to, not by myself. But, let’s be real here. You probably shouldn’t have done this, lady. I run with the wolves, and I’m nowhere _near_ alone.”

Derek snarls over his shoulder, lets Allison step forward to take charge of the hunters while he pulls Stiles around. Magic buzzes over his skin for just a moment under Derek’s hand; Stiles grins.

  


\--

“Idiot,” Derek snaps, helping him up onto the bathroom counter attached to his room. “Can’t you just fucking watch out for yourself?”

“Yes, I can, but usually I’m not surrounded by hunters without knowing it. It’s not my fault none of you could be around to sniff them out.” He leans his head back against the mirror, closes his eyes; the light above him highlights the veins in his eyelids. He thinks of his magic, thinks of being hit, thinks of Derek’s hands tugging his jeans down to get at the wound.

Derek snorts, presses his hand to Stiles’ leg. “I don’t think it actually went too deep, but you still need stitches. Where’re the antiseptic and the anesthetic?”

“Don’t need it, just do it. Magic’ll numb it.” He yawns, slumps further on the counter until Derek has to lean his body weight in to keep Stiles up. “You’re warm.”

“I would say don’t fall asleep considering you took yet another knock to the head, but if you haven’t had a concussion by this point, I’m beginning to doubt you ever will.”

“Have too,” Stiles argues, breathing in slowly through his teeth as Derek pours alcohol over the wound. “Fuck, _ow.”_

When he forces his eyes open, Derek’s frowning down at his leg, positioning the needle, and he stares--stares at the concentration in Derek’s expression, at the steadiness of his hands, at the bloodstains on his shirt and the mud in his hair and the pink skin that means he’s healed recently. Stiles presses his fingers against the spot, closes his eyes again as his magic jumps up to crackle over Derek’s neck; he hears him snuff at the feeling and smiles softly.

“Thank you for your perfect timing,” he mumbles. “Appreciate it.”

“Since when am I your boyfriend? And who the fuck told you the word mate could be applied _anywhere?_ ” Derek asks instead of acknowledging it, and Stiles laughs so hard that Derek has to clamp down on his leg above the cut to keep the needle from stabbing him unnecessarily.

“Oh, god, her face, though!” He thunks his head back against the glass, happy despite the dull pain in his thigh and the sharper buzz of magic around him. “You should have seen it. Imagine if it had been true.”

“Probably wouldn't have turned out any differently. You still would have gone off on your own, I still would have gotten angry about it, and the pack still would have barged in at the eleventh hour to pull your ass out of a dangerous situation, or vice versa.”

“Pull a dangerous situation out of my ass?”

“Shut up,” Derek says, quiet, amused. “I’m just saying it wouldn’t have changed anything about tonight.”

“You might have tried the ‘kiss and make it better’ method.” Derek pauses, and when Stiles opens his eyes, still grinning, Derek’s expression is flat, eyebrows winging up just enough to make him smile wider. “Just saying, dude.”

“Would trying that make you shut up?”

“Uh.” Stiles blinks, looks over Derek’s shoulder to the wall and back, frozen. “I--”

“Evidence says yes,” Derek points out, tying off the stitches neatly. He’s far too good at that. “Done.”

“Thanks,” Stiles offers around a yawn. “Your hands are definitely steadier than mine.”

The magic under his skin spikes up under Derek’s hands as they move from his thigh to either side of his neck, and Stiles stares at him, watches the corners of his lips curve up just barely as he ducks his head. “Oh,” he says. “Cool. This works, too.”

Derek kisses him, maybe to shut him up, maybe to reassure him, maybe to prove that Stiles is a dumbass, but in the end the why never matters, not the way the press of his fingers do, or the stubble scraping Stiles’ chin, or the way Stiles clutches at the grungy t-shirt around Derek’s shoulders. The why doesn’t compare to the way Stiles’ magic twists around them, bright and electric and thrumming with the median of their heartbeats.

And when Derek pulls back, hands trailing over the skin of his neck, Stiles leans his head back against the mirror, eyes closed, smiling, and digs his nails into Derek's hips.

He doesn't let go.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> beta’ed by [linsa](http://wordsandwhims.livejournal.com/) . all remaining mistakes are my own.


End file.
